Philosophy

Self correcting science – an empty promise?

An important link to thenewstatistics.com

I saw a talk by David Allison about his efforts to correct simple statistical mistakes in the published literature. He would notice a clear and obvious error, like a claimed interaction that wasn’t actually tested properly. He would then send a polite email to the authors to explain the situation so it could be corrected. If the authors didn’t respond, he’d move on to the editors. He went through case after case that he had pursued, and the result was almost always the same: indifference.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Allergy, Genetics

What did Sequana really find at Tristan da Cunha?

The Tristan da Cunha asthma study  was leading to patent US6087485A. The patent describes

highly significant linkage in the genome scan (p=0.0001 for history of asthma and p=0.0009 for methacholine challenge) … at D11S907, a marker on the short arm of chromosome 11.

D11S907 or  AFM109YA1 is a microsatellite marker located at 11p13 in a gene known as EHF (ETS homologous factor).  There should be 2 genes in close proximity of the marker: ASTH1I and ASTH1J.

ASTH1I and ASTH1J were detected by exon trapping. ASTH1I exons detected a 2.8 kb mRNA expressed at high levels in trachea and prostate, and at lower levels in lung and kidney …
ASTH1J exons detected a 6.0 kb mRNA expressed at high levels in the trachea, prostate and pancreas and at lower levels in colon, small intestine, lung and stomach.

The sequences of  table 2 in the patent are sufficient now to locate ASTH1I and ASTH1J. Continue reading What did Sequana really find at Tristan da Cunha? →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Allergy, Genetics

25 years Transatlantic Airway Conference 1997 on asthma genetics in Key Biscayne

Gallery

The conference series started in 1986 while the 12th conference was organized by Jeff Drazen with local support of Adam Wanner.

 

Sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim, the participant list is the WHO is WHO in pulmonary genetics at that time: Bleecker, Meyers, Woolcock, Weiss, Burrows, Postma, Kauffmann, Dizier, LeSouef, Blumenthal, Banks-Schlegel, Slutsky, Zamel, Ober, Bousquet, Vercelli, Barnes, Adcock, Dahlen, Pauwels, Lewitt, Aron, Martinez, Cookson, Moffatt, Rosenwasser, Liggett, Rich, Papadopoulos, Levitt, Holgate, Elston, Morton and Marsh. Many of them do not live any more [1,2,3,4,5], some have made big careers [1,2], others have been fallen somewhat into disgrace [1,2,3]  and many already retired. Continue reading 25 years Transatlantic Airway Conference 1997 on asthma genetics in Key Biscayne →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Genetics

Lander landed

He basically killed one of my best papers by the Kruglyak-Lander rule of what is being “significant”. He started the stupid  CRISPR origin discussion. But now he steps down

President Biden’s top science adviser Eric Lander resigned on Monday after an investigation revealed he violated the White House‘s workplace policy by mistreating staff members

details at dailymail.co.uk

Lander ‘retaliated against staff for speaking out and asking questions by calling them names, disparaging them, embarrassing them in front of their peers, laughing at them, shunning them, taking away their duties, and replacing them or driving them out of the agency. Numerous women have been left in tears, traumatized, and feeling vulnerable and isolated,’ Wallace told the outlet.

Statnews has  a good commentary about “The fall of Eric Lander and the end of science’s “big ego’ era”

 It’s not quite “big science,” which isn’t going anywhere. Call it “big ego.” In science, “big ego” isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. But in recent decades it grew with the emergence of researchers who could both handle the kind of gloves-off debate that can mark academic discourse and marshal vast resources to make certain types of scientific discoveries, like mapping genomes.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Theology

Haltet euch nicht selbst für klug

Benedicite persequentibus vos : benedicite, et nolite maledicere. 15 Gaudere cum gaudentibus, flere cum flentibus : 16 idipsum invicem sentientes : non alta sapientes, sed humilibus consentientes. Nolite esse prudentes apud vosmetipsos : 17 nulli malum pro malo reddentes : providentes bona non tantum coram Deo, sed etiam coram omnibus hominibus. 18 Si fieri potest, quod ex vobis est, cum omnibus hominibus pacem habentes : 19 non vosmetipsos defendentes carissimi, sed date locum iræ. Scriptum est enim : Mihi vindicta : ego retribuam, dicit Dominus. 20 Sed si esurierit inimicus tuus, ciba illum : si sitit, potum da illi : hoc enim faciens, carbones ignis congeres super caput ejus. 21 Noli vinci a malo, sed vince in bono malum.
ad Romanos 12:16

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Genetics, Philosophy

What is needed is a confrontational approach

Google showed me today a long forgotten abstract. Although I am not an expert in schizophrenia we collaborated two decades ago on this particular chromosomal region.

What is even more remarkable is the challenging keynote of the Xth World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics in The Palais des Congre ́s Brussels, Belgium October 9 –13, 2002 by Irving Gottesman [+2016], the father of epigenetics in psychiatry. He wrote there

We cannot escape the history of our field and are constantly guided today by the accumulation of facts with either positive or negative valences from our past. But when did the clock start—with the domestication of animals, with Galton’s musings and amoral passion for data collection about individual differences in behavior, or with the initially objective scientizing of Mendelism applied to schizophrenia but ending with a Nazi-tainted albatross around the neck of psychiatric genetics. In regard to the long quest for the distal and genetic (partial) causes of mental diseases, the conclusion that both genetic and environmental factors, none yet known in detail, provide the distal causes of mental disorders—that statement is too general to be of use to making further progress. What is needed is a confrontational approach based on evidence collected from competing ‘schools of thought’, and then reconciliation before some kind of omniscient and impartial Science Court.

I couldn’t agree more. What is needed is a confrontational approach based on evidence collected from competing ‘schools of thought’, and then reconciliation before some kind of omniscient and impartial Science Court.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025